Elevation of Mana Chapter 16 Playing

Ayla moved as if she was going to try picking me up but I avoided her grasping hands like they were snakes.

"No, don't pick me up," I said with the harshest voice I could manage and a glare.

"We're playing village," she said. "You're clearly a little one."

"No, I am practicing. No picking up."

Some of the nearby women began to laugh and the girl tried to step forward and pick me up again, but in the moments we'd been thinking I thought up a secret technique. She reached under my arms and as she did I placed a small force there, just along my skin, pushing down to keep me in place. The tried to lift me up, only to find that I might as well have been a boulder. This went on and on and I eventually heard a lot of laughing.

"I said no picking up," I declared to the exasperated looking girl.

"... what?"  She just looked confused as she found herself unable to lift the small child.

"He's using his light.  Which he will not be doing to harm anyone, will you Elian?"  My aunt finally said, emphasizing the last part.

"I'm not hurting anyone, I'm just not letting her pick me up," I retorted.  I wasn't some maniac who'd hurt a kid for acting like a kid, at the same time I didn't want some random girls thinking they could just carry me around whenever and wherever they pleased.

"Be careful," Auntie Atie said with only a slight frown.

I nodded and began to walk over to where the girls were, looking around for something to do.  I watched the girls for awhile, and began to realize that their game was deeper than I'd thought.  They were discussing who would make what, what for, and how much as they worked.  there were a few who had different skills, or different preferences, and their magic played into this slightly.

Most of the girls here were now able to use the one magical abilities like everyone in the village seemed to manifest at some point, and while they weren't big things they did effect their lives.  For example one girl could make plants grow slightly, and so her position was to either get the other's favorite fruits, or to make the stems just right for harvesting materials for little crafts like they were doing now.

Ayla could make a small force that would throw things away from her.  I of course knew well that she was pushy, but the joke seemed not to fit the language quite right.  It let her get fruits that grew really high to fall, and to scare away small animals.  She was odd in that she seemed to have far more uses of it than average, not like me, but neither like the others, somewhere in-between.

"What are you playing?"  I finally asked.

"Village," one of the girls answered.  "We make things and then trade them.  Right now we're doing cord since the plants are good for it."

"But you're all making the same thing?"  I asked, not seeing how they could trade when they all ended up with the same stuff.

"No look," she replied.  "My cord is really small, while Ayla's is really thick.  They're for different stuff.  You could use mine for decorations and things, while Ayla is making cord for hanging things or making soft baskets."

"And you trade?"  I asked.

"Yeah, we use the cheap beads when we can get them, or just trade for each other's stuff.  I'm Isha by the way," she explained.

"Nice to meet you Isha," I said as I watched their hands move.  It was true that each was using a different amount of fiber, even if they were all using basically the same quick twisting motion.

"Your dad does pretty stone carving, maybe you can too?"  Ayla said, interrupting us.

"Not like he does, his light and mine are different," I explained without even looking over.

I could see the group all pouting at that.  They knew I wanted to practice my magic, and I knew if I started carving stones one, or more likely all of them would be begging me to make them some more of their money.  Even if it was poor it would do for their games.  I had an idea that was not the worst idea, it would ingratiate me, and also be something new to try.

"I have another thing I could do though, one moment."

Nobody cared too much if I wandered a bit, so long as I stayed fairly close.  To that end I made my way over near some of the trees, and began looking upwards.  There were all kinds of branches, green branches, old branches that were nice and thick, some that were stuck in the trees and had fallen long ago, but none of those were quite what I was looking for.  What I was looking for right now was dead hanging wood, nice and dry, but hopefully not rotten.

Soon enough I found a bit that looked right, up in one of the trees used for nuts.  With a wave of my hand I sent a little bolt of force up, sending the length falling down to the ground.  I got a lot of looks, some of them rather disapproving as I did this, but whatever, nobody really cared so long as nobody got hurt.

After going over to the little bit I realized that I'd erred slightly.  The branch was quite a lot bigger than I'd been thinking it was, and far more than I needed for my plan.  Searching through I found a length that was a couple feet long and around an inch in width.  Through a mixture of pulling and more little magical bolts I liberated it from the rest of the wood and headed back over to the girls.

They all watched on with curiosity as I held the branch in front of me and set it to spinning.  Faster and faster it went wobbling slightly since it wasn't perfectly balanced.  That would be the first thing I fixed though, no problem.  Force was probably my favorite magic to use, if only because it was really easy to understand, and therefore easy for me to do, and the outcome was always cool.

Slowly, carefully, I made a little blade of force, shaping the angle and making it really sharp.  Then I began to lathe the wood down.  I needed it only around a quarter of an inch really, so that was the first thing.  It was hard at first, but got easier to shape as I went along, the branch shrinking over the course of a few passes.

I nodded at my work and made a quick and dirty drill bit, shoving it through the piece at the center of rotation.  This was easy to find as I was the one doing it, and I had to say, far easier than using any drill.  Slow and steady was the name of the game when it came to drilling so I took my sweet time, looking up to count the girls while I did so.

By the time the hole was made I was feeling it.  My energy was burning like nothing and I needed to hurry this up before I was completely tapped out.  The last part was easy enough, just cutting the little bit of wood into roughly appropriate sized beads, five for each girl, ten for myself.

Each and every one was basically worthless.  They had no color, no designs, and all looked the same.  That said, the girls were over the moon when I gave them each the equivalent of a handful of change to play with.  My aunt quickly came over as I did so to inspect was I was passing out.  She'd been watching and this apparently was something she had great interest in looking over.

"Very plain, and rough," she observed, picking one up.

"They're toys.  The girls can make them pretty if they want," I was done, and moved back over by Isha.

That was my concession to good sense.  I didn't want to ruin the local economy, just provide the girls with something to play with and learn.  Playing was important for all kinds of social development and whatever, and I liked to see people smile.

"Fine, but don't go doing this a lot.  You'll make people mad," Atie said before returning to her seat and shaking her head.

I went back over to Isha and pulled one of my beads out.  "Trade for some cord?"  I asked.  If I was going to be stuck over here I could at least do that much, and I wanted some string.

"Three," she said, smiling.

"..."

"Um... two?"  I didn't even have to tell her how dumb she was being, she got it herself.

"I could make my own cord, and I don't need much."

Timidly she took the bead and handed me a small roll of her work.  It was way more than I really wanted, but whatever, I could use string every now and then.  After our trade I did the logical thing and strung my own bits, content to leave it at that and crash in the grass while I recharged.

The girls were going on and on and eventually I looked back up to see Isha trying to figure out how she wanted to store her day's takings.  The other girls didn't seem to have anything she wanted at the moment and she was trying to use a strand of hair to hang them by.  It was not going well.

"Here, I'll help," I offered.  "Can you make another really short bit of cord?"

"Um, sure," she said.

I braided her spoils into her hair.  It was easy enough to do.  When I'd been a kid in my first life one of my first friends had been a girl in elementary school.  I was awkward and she was sickly, so we both sort of kept away from other people.  While she didn't do much in the way of social things she'd been all about arts and crafts, and had shown me hair braids, bracelets, and all the standard young girl things that had run through the school.  All of those were easy as pie too.

With a bit of a start I froze.  I hadn't thought of her in years, literal years.  There was no way I should remember things like that.  I did though, all of it, everything she'd shown me, every technique I'd learned was burned into my mind.  Before my rebirth I probably wouldn't have recognized a picture of her if you'd shoved it in my face, now though I felt like I could draw her from memory and have it be perfect.

"Everything okay?"  Isha asked.

"Yeah, sorry, fine."  Quickly I finished, taking the bit of cord and tying her hair in place.  It wasn't the nicest in the world, but it was good enough, and I had things to process.

As I laid back down I thought.  Everything I practiced came to memory with ease.  All the techniques, all the hard studied things that had once slipped my mind now seemed to stick there like glue.  It wasn't totally perfect, but it was getting clearer, way clearer, and the memories I was making now?  They were had a crystal quality that seemed unlikely to ever shatter.  What could I become in a decade?  In a century?  More?

A/N:  Been awhile since I put one of these out.